It’s always nice when family has your back. So it should come as a great relief to hear that Tim Berners-Lee, father of the internet, opposes recent controversial web freedom-limiting legislation such as SOPA and PIPA.
Copyright maths might not be something you’ve lent much thought to before, but in this talk Rob Reid — founder of Rhapsody — tries to explain the silly numbers that are used to justify SOPA and PIPA. He’s very funny, and his talk is very interesting. Turns out your iPod might be worth more than you thought.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement certainly sounds, just on the name of the thing alone, like not such a bad idea. But for the basic principles of personal privacy it is, and it’s the latest in the recent rash of acronymic acts that the Internet’s up in arms about. Here’s what we in Australia need to know.
Another bill which would have violated the civil liberties of many — Hawaii’s H.B. 2288 Internet Dossier bill — has been pulled off the table following public outrage. And for good reason; the law would have tracked every website Hawaiians visited and linked that browsing history to a name and address. It opened the door to profound first and fourth US amendment violations. But worst of all, it was born out of ignorance.
Senator Chuck Grassley, previously documented for his inability to express a coherent thought via World Wide Web, just had that burden removed: his Twitter account has been hacked. For the first time ever, his tweets make sense!
In response to the online blackout in protest of the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills floating around US congress, Senate leader Harry Reid has opted to postpone the vote on the bill, believing there’s a way to first find compromise between all parties.
While we’re all up in arms over SOPA and PIPA, the government of Iran continues to monitor its citizen’s Internet access. The government has gone so far as to sentence a programmer to death for insulting the sanctity of Islam because of a piece of software used by a porn site.
See? Congress does listen to the will of the people on occasion — especially when that will is wielded as a blunt instrument. As this infographic from ProPublica illustrates, yesterday’s blackout protests not only culled the official SOPA supporters by 15 congressmen, it actually added 70 opponents.
This is a great short documentary on what’s SOPA and PIPA in a very clear, simple way. It also explains why they will screw us all if we let US Congress approve this law. You should watch it.
Yesterday was, it turns out, a good day: so far, 18 senators previously in favour of PIPA now oppose it, seven of whom were former co-sponsors of the act.
